


Recruits

by lordnelson100



Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: American History, Boston, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Fate, Faustian Bargain, Gen, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Trickster Gods, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-08 19:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12871833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordnelson100/pseuds/lordnelson100
Summary: The Norse god of battle and a mad Irish king walk into a bar. This is not a joke, my son: except in a sense, it is. They are Old Gods, it’s the New World, and the game must be kept going.





	Recruits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Darkhymns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkhymns/gifts).



### The New World

_March 31, 1000 CE, Newfoundland_

Freydis stood alone on the salty beach, watching the retreating ship till it disappeared into the mist. She held one hand over her stomach, cradling it, as if holding in the warmth. The cold water ran in and out around her ankles. She stood still so long that her feet half sank into the wet and shifting silt.

At last she turned and walked back up the shore, solitary, her yellow hair streaming in the wet wind.

She made her way to edge of the woods and crouched among the thickets, sitting so still that soon a cautious hare came nosing and lollopping along and stopped to nibble at a patch of wild asters, careless of her presence. She killed it with a quick stab of her wooden lance.

While its small body was still warm, she cut its throat, brought it to her mouth and sucked at the flow of blood. The warm liquid tasted of iron and salt and she nearly gagged. Still, she held the foulness in her mouth and swallowed. Her gods had strange, uncomfortable requirements.

Later that night, sitting by her little fire, she carved a crude figure out of the bones of the hare. She made a man of bone, with a small point to represent the beard, another for his hood. Two round gouges represented eyes, a line for a mouth; and she made him a little spear of wood.

She chanted her wishes to herself as she worked.

All at once, though she heard no sound but the usual night forest noises, she felt watched. Looking up, she saw a man standing among the trees. Not one of the _skraelings_ , the natives with their copper skin and long black hair, all woven with feather and bone.

No, this man was of the people of the North, the people of the Sea, as she was. Pale hair, pale eyes, pale skin whipped pink and worn by long weathering.

“Good evening, daughter,” the man said. “I have an answer for your plea.”

Stooping, he reached into her little fire and drew forth a handful of ashes. Amazed, she saw that the flame did not burn his hand; that the ashes lay cool and white in his palm, although a second ago they had been in the glowing heart of the fire. He reached out towards her. She sat still, refusing to flinch. Gently, he made a mark on her forehead with the ashes. Then he drew in the dirt with one finger. First, strange runes whose meaning she knew not. Then, what seemed to be a simple map.

“Five miles from your little camp, by the side of a river, under the shadow of that big hill shaped like a horse’s back which you can see from here, you will find a skraeling village. When you get there, you will find you can speak their tongue: a gift from me.”

He gave her a sly, conspiratorial grin. “Tell them about your babe that will be. Tell them that the father is a god, and that you have been sent to lead their tribe to victory over their neighbors, who are cursed.”

“But All-Father, the father of my baby is not a god,” Freydis answered. “He is a man. And he is on the ship that left today and left me behind. _He_ is why I called upon you: for I would have vengeance.” 

“Oh!” he said, “Do not worry about that. This night there will be a great storm at sea. My son will help me there. That treacherous one will never see his village again. Vengeance is your will: I give it to you. In return, you will do mine.” 

“All-Father, I will remember the words to say.” She gazed back at him calmly. “These people, against whom I am to lead the native folk in war: _how_ are they cursed?”

“Practical girl, to remember to ask!” His laugh showed sharp white teeth. “Well, they aren’t, exactly. No more than other people. But your villagers will be more willing to risk attacking their neighbors if they think the odds are tipped in their favor.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. “These are tricks, then, All-Father? To make them follow me into battle, to fool them into courage?”

He continued to smile his wolfish smile. “Of course they are tricks. Have you not heard that Odin is a trickster, too? For I am the father of strength and of the storm, but also I am the father of cunning. So it must be, if those who worship me would prevail. I have no intention of being the god of honest, noble victims. That I leave to others.”

Freydis did not entirely follow his speech. But she felt she had enough to go on, so she nodded.

“Now on your way, daughter! Take shelter for tonight and then follow the directions I gave. Do what you do best.” He stood, and wiped ashes off his hands.

“ _Make war._  Here is a whole new world to do it in!”

#

 

### Walk Into a Bar

_March 31, 1917 CE, Boston, Massachusetts_

 

Billy O’Malley sat on the steps of Gate of Heaven.

He oughtn’t have come back at all, but a job down in Bridgeport had gone awry and there was a slim chance, a very slim chance, that a woman who’d sworn she’d never willingly set eyes on him again would nonetheless give him supper and a bed for the night.

He’d walked all the way from South Station, miles down Broadway in the freezing, biting cold, for he hadn’t coin for a cab or even a spare nickel for the streetcar. And all the way he’d thought of how he’d win his way into her warm kitchen, the clever things he might say, the sorrowful look he might give to win her over.

But she wasn’t even there at all, in the shabby three-decker house on D Street. A sour old man answered the door and swore he’d never heard of her, let alone knowing her present address.

So O’Malley went and sat on the steps of the darkened church. The arched doorway gave him just a little shelter from the cruel wind. There was a faint light inside the church, which gave  a touch of color to a few of the stained glass windows:  glints of deep, blood red and gold and blue. Someone in there was lighting a candle or two; a priest, maybe, mourning for sinful souls and his own disused cock.

Billy supposed he could go round to the rectory and knock on the kitchen door, give them the old sob story, see if they’d point him to shelter and a handout. But he had no taste for the prayers he’d have to pretend. He felt disgust for the thin soup and company of other unwashed vagrants that would be his lot if he took the cold charity of the Church. He shivered; he’d really set his heart on Molly and her kitchen; her warm bed after.

“Well, you’re down on your luck, William O’Malley. Or so it would seem.”

O’Malley looked up. He didn’t know the fellow who’d addressed him: he take a bet on that. Didn’t sound like he was from Southie, but then, he didn’t sound like a hick from out of town or one of the countless immigrants who spilled into Boston from Ireland or Italy, neither.

“Me, bud? Nah, I’m just waiting on my ride. My chauffeur's bringing round a nice shiny motor car for me from Mister Ford. He’ll be here any minute. I’m just per-ambulatin’, in the meantime.”

The other man laughed: a rich plummy sound. “That’s the spirit! You’re not lacking in spark, it would seem. I like a man who doesn’t confuse adversity with humiliation! A fine side effect of democracy.” 

At this substantial mouthful of words, Billy gave him the side eye. He thought to himself, “Who is this character? An egghead from Harvard, some crackpot professor? Some rich dope, wandered down from Beacon Hill to take the air?”

The stranger gave him a jovial grin. Billy had an unnerving feeling as if his head were scalped open and bare to anyone’s gaze, like the poor sods in glass cases at the museum.

“I tell you what, Mr. O’Malley, since I like your style. I’ve got a prospect of employment for you— of sorts. An upcoming opening, just right for a man who’s found himself at loose ends at this historic moment.”

“A job?” said O’Malley, cautiously. Who offers a job to a bum with empty pockets, after swapping a few sentences with him on a street corner? Someone looking for a sucker, that’s who. Still, what did he have to lose by playing along?

“Indeed. A _job_ , as you’d call it. Tomorrow is the first of April, is it not? No balmy airs or lovely blossoms of spring, here in the noble cod-scented city of Boston. But still, the début of springtime!”  

The stranger rocked back on his heels, with a hand in each pocket.  He seemed to be savoring his own eloquence, like a carnival barker or a traveling salesman.

“On the sixth day from now—that’s Friday evening—I want you to go down to the Hibernian Hall. A man will call you by name, and offer you his hand. He’ll have work for you that’ll keep you in boots and hats and a warm coat, food and a bunk and the company of good lads besides.”

“Sounds appealing,” said Billy, humoring him. “Listen, I’m not one to hide my light under the bushel basket, but just out of curiosity, which of my abundant talents and qualifications attracted your attention?" 

“Tis your wit, Billy, my boy, your quick wit!” said the man.

> A better burden can no man bear  
>  On the way than his mother wit;  
>  'Tis the refuge of the poor, and richer it seems  
>  Than wealth in a world untried.*

“Poetry, huh? Well, if you’re short a few wits, those I got. Can’t say I’d mind trading them for more of the other kind of riches, though. The kind that comes in dollars and cents. What’s the hitch?” 

“But that’s not all!” said the strange man, neatly sidestepping Billy’s question.  “No, no! I think a little encouragement is in order. I don’t want to take any chances. A man in your position might be tempted by competing opportunities.”

“Right, right. Other _opportunities_. A fellow of my talents has gotta keep his eyes open! I’m expecting J. P. Morgan Junior or a couple of Vanderbilts to come round from Fifth Avenue with an offer any day now.”

“Just so. So to keep things all in order, I’ll make you an advance. You give me your word to show up where and when I say, and in return, I’ll provide a little sweetener.”

“You’ll _pay_ me to take this job?”

“Not only that: I’ll pay you up front.”  

And he handed O’Malley a beautiful crisp twenty-dollar bill, just like that. _Like a millionaire in a vaudeville,_ Billy thought. Or a madman.

Well, at the moment he didn’t care if this guy was a loony escaped from the State Hospital; maybe this job scheme was a pipe dream or some sort of confidence game. Billy didn’t care: not with the bill in his hand. He quickly tucked it into the inside pocket of his worn jacket. 

Seeing that his prize was safe, he turned to his strange new acquaintance once more. “Guess we’re square then. I’ll be there Friday night to, uh, take up this new engagement.”

“Right we are, William O’Malley! Now, come be my guest for the evening,” the stranger said, giving him a friendly nod. “You’ll eat at my table and drink of my cup, William. To seal our bargain.”

“Okay by me,” said Billy. “I’ve had a few cancellations in my social diary, see, so I’m available.  A thing, though. You keep using my name. You ain’t told me yours.”

“Wednesday,” the stranger intoned, straightening his hat.

“ _Wednesday_? Last I looked, it was a goddamn Saturday night. And what kind of a name is Wednesday?”

“A nickname, O’Malley. Just for my pals. You can call me Mister Bailey, if you need a respectable-sounding name to write in your diary.” *

#

_Earlier_

He sat at the bar smoking a Chesterfield cigarette and watching the smoke drift upwards towards the ceiling. He had a look of some prosperity, this man: a little too good for his surroundings. Most of the other patrons had holes in their coats and dirt on the cuffs of their trousers. Perhaps that was why the bar-stool next to him stayed empty as the evening wore away, though the little bar was crowded.   

He took out a watch and glanced at it. His coat and vest were of fine cloth and an elegant watch-chain ran from vest to pocket, glinting as he stowed away his timepiece. He had a certain air about him, sly and amused, a bowler jauntily tipped on curling black hair. It was hard to say what age he was: his face was creased with lines but there was no faintness of age in his deep-set, hooded eyes, which were of mismatched colors.

“What’ll it be, fella?” said the barkeep. He swabbed at the bar with a cloth but it was ritual only, for the rag was far too filthy to do more than sluice spilled drink around the dirty marble top.

“I don’t suppose you have any mead, my fine fellow?” the stranger with the watch replied, showing sharp white teeth in a smile. “For I have a bargain to drink upon, this holy and ball-freezing eve.”

The bartender gave him the eye. “I got beer and I got whisky, bud. This ain’t the Parker House.”

“That it isn’t,” said another voice, genial, “‘The dirty hole. Tis not even a place of ill repute, tis a house of _no repute at all_. And even to call what they serve here _uisce_ is a heartbreaking insult to the saints and old gods of Ireland. Three hundred years and still they make this fucken swill out of corn and dare to call it by the name of whiskey, the ignorant savages.”

The second man was a great, towering fellow with a ragged red beard and his shirt rolled over brawny arms. He took the empty stool next to the dapper stranger. 

“You would know, Mad Sweeney,” said the first man. “Well then, barkeep, two whiskeys, or as near as you can approach to them.”

He took from his pocket a coin and set it on the bar. A gold dollar: it sat there, gleaming amid the smoke and dim light. At the sight of it the bartender became a little less sullen. “Tell  me when we’ve drunk our way through that, good sir, and I’ll give the lady a companion,” its owner said.

The barman nodded and stood their round before them with a sharp clink. Liberty’s profile smirked from the coin in her headdress of stolen feathers.

Mad Sweeney snorted. “Irony, that is. They ought to’ve shown her hands, didn’t they, one of them clutching a Remington rifle and the other a railway bond.”

“To Liberty!” said his acquaintance, “And speaking of rifles, it appears that the New World is about to pick up arms at last, and go to join the dance in the Old.”

“Up to their eyebrows in blood and mud and corpses over there, they say,” said Mad Sweeney, “Sounds right up your alley, ye bloodthirsty old crow.”

“Not all all,” said Wednesday, with a dismissive flick of one finger. 

“Don’t spit in my eye, Glad-of-War! Are you now of a sudden losing your taste for ill-news? Although I suppose it’s more the other side that’s in your line, not the Yanks. Them bleedin’ Krauts, Wagner and pride of Germania out their shite holes. Ride of the Valkyries on a phonograph record, eh? Glories of the Kaiser, an’ all that!”

“That little shit the Kaiser doesn’t know his tiny prick from his withered left arm!” Wednesday snorted in derision.  “I’m the lord of battle, not the god of machines and chemical fumes. This ungodly mess is none of my planning."

He seemed to contemplate the bottom of his glass with exasperation. “Poison gas! Long-range field guns! Who has time to work up a fine battle frenzy or plead for me to tip the odds in their favor, when like as not they’re dead the first time they stick their head out of the trenches?” 

"No one’s a hero in the age of mass conscription.” He sighed and signalled for another round. “Have you heard tell of any Valkyries riding tits-out over the fields of Flanders? Can’t send a man to Valhalla by burning his lungs out or blowing him into rags with shells fired from a thousand yards off.”

“True, true,” said Sweeney. “Where’s the nobility, where’s the adventure in that?”

“Not a lot of chance for me to stir the juices in the hearts of men to blood thirst and battle joy. No desperate cries for someone up above to speed their enemy to their grave, no secret pleas to trade treasure for a taste of victory. It’s hard enough for such old rogues as us to survive in this new world, but without some soldiers who actually _need_ us, who'll take our help and cry our names, well . . !”

All around them, men were drinking down their paychecks, in contentment or weariness, murmuring and laughing. Few seemed to want to leave the warm fustiness of the barroom for their beds.

“We have to keep playing, those like us. Good war, bad war, World War. You can’t drop out of the game, or you’re done for. It’s not like old days. Kings and lords like you don’t fight wars with their own bloody fists anymore, Sweeney, and make sweet sacrifices on my altars. We need _littler_ people. Suckers looking for a deal, willing to sign on with a higher power to save their ass or change their luck, without examining the fine print. We need the common man!”

“And so we’re met to find you a follower or two, is that it?” said Sweeney. “You cunning old cunt.”

Wednesday lit himself a fresh cigarette, and gestured theatrically.

“The good old United States of America haven’t had a proper war since Cuba.” He tisked his tongue. “Here come all these lovely people from all over the world to these shining shores and before you know it, all they want is _prosperity_ : a new straw hat and a shoe-shine, a grilled steak and an evening at the nickelodeon, a piano in the parlor and dollars in their pocket.”

“And you’re thinking a war’s just the thing to change their tastes, now, and teach them differently?”

“If I can’t turn a great, burning world disaster like this to my advantage,” said Wednesday. “Then hang me on a tree and pluck my eye out.”

#

  
The bar was nothing fancy, a smoky, dim joint among a row of similarly undistinguished neighbors selling cheap food and drink, but it was warm. That alone was enough to endear it to O’Malley, tonight. 

This fellow Wednesday, or Mister Bailey, or whatever his real name was, bought him a plate of corned beef and potatoes, a slice of pie and a beer. _Swell_ , he thought, as his belly got warm. _Right now I’m game for anything_. 

As he shoveled the food into his mouth and washed it down with foaming brew, they were joined by a pal of Bailey. He was a great bear of an Irishman with flaming red hair and a shaggy beard, and an accent like he just fell off the potato boat.

“Mad Sweeney, meet Billy O’Malley. O’Malley, this is my fine colleague and collaborator,” said his boss-of-sorts.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” said Billy. “Let me guess, you’re an Italian. How’s the Pope?”

“He’s at home in the Vatican buggering the cardinals, last I heard,” said Sweeney. “But I’ll thank you not to mis-name me out of my own nation. It was cursed Saint Ronan who couldn’t take a joke, not any Pope that I fell foul of. I was damned by a proper Irishman and not any garlic-chewing Roman priest!” *

“The theology of that is beyond me, brother,” said Billy, companionably, “but I’ll take your word for it.”

“So you’ve come to work for our friend, have ye?” said Sweeney, pointing his glass at Bailey. “I warn you, he has more tricks in him then a whorehouse on sailors’ payday. He’s a conjurer, ye must know, and a hustler, a confidence man of the first water.” 

Now O’Malley didn’t half-believe in the promised job that was to magically come his way on Friday, but he had the crisp twenty in his pocket and food in his stomach and a beer in his hand. So he grinned at the Irishman and swaggered back at him.

“I don’t particularly care if he’s Harry Houdini and P. T. Barnum combined,” said O’Malley. “I’m not working for him personally, in any event, from what he says. He’s just my patron, as it were. It’s regular, honest work he’s steering me towards, isn’t that right, Mister Bailey?”

“Ancient and honorable work indeed, my friend,” said Wednesday. “You can’t deny that, Mad Sweeney.”

Sweeny snorted. “Well, it’s your head.”  He swallowed a tumbler of whiskey like a child drinking milk and signalled for more drinks.

O’Malley confessed to himself that he still couldn’t figure out their angle, or what he expected if he showed up for the mysterious job that he’d been hired for, sight unseen. 

He thought: “Is it a robbery they’re after, and they want me to stand lookout or drive the car? Or they’re police dicks, the strangest ever? Maybe they’ll get me to laughing and drinking and going along of them, then they’ll turn and slap the cuffs on me and swear to the Virgin I’m the boy who did it, whatever _it_ is.”

As the night wore on, the drinks flowed and his head whirled, but the mystery got no clearer. 

When Mad Sweeney got good and drunk, he began to roar out a song. 

> Come, laddies, come, hear the cannon roar  
>  Take the king's shilling and you're off to war

Other patrons in the bar objected to his volume and his choice of subject, or both. Some made pointed allusions to the color of his hair and others to his female parent.  Before too long an all-hands, unhindered brawl was underway, with Mad Sweeney knocking men down like duck pins while shaking off blows that would have stunned a donkey.

Billy O’Malley threw a few punches himself, out of courtesy for having drunk with Bailey and his friend for the evening, but when the confusion was at its height, he slipped away to the corner where he saw a lass with a cunning look to her eye.

He told her how he’d always heard that rest was the thing for a fine complexion; she batted long eyelashes and agreed.  She had a room upstairs, it happened, and so they went up, with a couple of fresh whiskeys to accompany them.

The little room was all lined with pages out of illustrated magazines, pasted onto the dull battered wallpaper: Mary Pickford and Theda Bara, Eugene O’Brien and Wallace Reid. _Film Idols,_ read the scrolling type on one cover, and _Moving Picture World_. He traced a finger over their too-perfect profiles, as he lay back on the bed, waiting for her to finish undressing.

“You’re big on the pictures?” he asked.

“Well, I get lonely, lots,” she said confidingly. “And they help to pass the time.”

On the windowsill, there was a little saucer of milk. “For your cat?” Billy asked her.

Essie (she’d said that was name) laughed a teasing laugh. “Why, I don’t have one, silly,” she said. “Why do you think I’m lonely!”

In the morning, she asked him for lock of his hair for luck, which he thought was sweet, and for a dollar. He shrugged and gave it to her. No luck came of being a cheapskate, and things were looking up, anyhow.

#

### Punch Line

 _April 6, 1917_ *

O’Malley walked in the door of Hibernian Hall on Friday night just as the clock struck the appointed hour.

He had exactly one dollar left of the twenty Bailey had given him six days before, but he was feeling pretty good. Washed, shaved, fed, fucked, and a brand new hat on his head, its brim sharp as a ruler.

Whatever this job was that Bailey wanted him to take, it was surely worth a shot.

There was a knot of men clustered together, all excited. One had a newspaper spread out in his hands and was reading aloud excitedly to the others.

WAR DECLARATION SIGNED, the lead type blared. _President Wilson Affixes Signature to Declaration of War with Germany!_

 _Fuck me_ , Billy sighed.

The recruiting sergeant called out at the sight of him. “Billy O’Malley, step right up! Why, Uncle Sam needs you, you know! It’s time for you to join up and become a handsome soldier lad! We’ll supply the outfit, and all.”

>   
>  A wayfarer should not walk unarmed,  
>  But have his weapons to hand:  
>  He knows not when he may need a spear,  
>  Or what menace meet on the road.  *

#

**Author's Note:**

>   * Archaeology suggests a short-lived Norse settlement existed in Newfoundland about the year 1000, supporting tales told in the Icelandic sagas.
>   * [Freydis Eiriksdottir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freyd%C3%ADs_Eir%C3%ADksd%C3%B3ttir) in our universe got the upperhand a different way; it seems she was on good terms with the Sigfodr.
>   * Odin is quoting from the Norse wisdom verses, [_Hávamál_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1vam%C3%A1l); that is, from himself.
>   * “Bailey”: _Baleyg_ – “The flaming-eyed”: one of the many [names of Odin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_of_Odin)
>   * It was Saint Ronan who drove [Buile Shuibhne](http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095534492) mad after some flagrant disrespect. Not only drove him mad but turned him to a bird, which seems like two penalties for one crime, but such is a saint’s prerogative.
>   * The Irish and Scots, being the traditional victims of the recruiters’ seductive wiles, have many songs about it. Mad Sweeney sings [this one](http://www.celticlyricscorner.net/casey/kings.htm).
>   * The United States made its belated entry into World War 1 on April 6, 1917.
>   * Gate of Heaven, Broadway, South Station,  D Street, the Parker House, and Hibernian Hall are places that existed at the time of this story in Boston, Massachusetts. Which is as likely place as any in America for an Old God of war and a mad Irish king to meet up. They are there still; you can see them for yourself. And so my story must be true.
> 



End file.
